Girl molested, abducted in public view

A 17-year-old was beaten up and kidnapped by three men, who intended to rape her, from outside a mall on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border on December 29 afternoon. That was the day when the 23-year-old gangrape victim died in Singapore and Delhi Police deployed more than 20,000 personnel across the city.

The girl is a class 12 student of an east Delhi private school. The Maruti Swift Dzire car in which the crime took place is owned by a senior official in public works department (PWD), whose office is in the building housing the Delhi Police headquarters, said a source.

The victim was rescued and the accused nabbed in a three-hour-long police operation. What was surprising was that they were not stopped at check points.

It was the alertness of an onlooker that saved the day. He swiftly made a PCR call about the incident even as another witness posted the information on social networking websites, following which 25 PCR calls were made till late in the night.

What is more astonishing is that even though the victim was kidnapped after being molested in public view, the UP police booked the accused under a milder Section 294 (obscene act in any public place) of the IPC as opposed to pressing kidnapping and molestation charges.

Due to this, the car driver, identified as one Javed, and his accomplices Sagar and Aashu got bail, said a police officer. And when contacted, none of the senior officers of the UP Police knew anything about the case.

Police said the victim was outside the mall with Aashu when Sagar and Javed arrived in the car and kidnapped her. "Even though the crime was committed in the territorial jurisdiction of UP police, our teams acted swiftly and rescued the girl," a police officer said. Asif Mohammad, additional DCP (east), said the case had been transferred to UP police.